Subject: bug#13583: 24.3.50; Error when activating auto-revert-mode

From: Dani Moncayo <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:42:39 +0100

>> The problem with that approach is that, if I do some other
>> customization and save it
>
> ??? You just said that you "try to avoid the customize facility", so
> why in the world would you want to save your customizations??

So far I use it for face customization, exclusively.

> Instead of saving them, use the custom-set-variables function to do
> what you want, when you want.

Good idea.  I'll do it.

>> the custom facility writes _all_ current unsaved customization to
>> the custom file, therefore the customization of
>> `auto-revert-use-notify' would end up in the custom file, which is
>> not what I want, obviously.
>
> This is a misunderstanding, surely: custom-set-variables does not save
> anything.  It arranges for the variable to be customized, as if you
> used the Customize user interface.  So I don't understand how "unsaved
> customizations" and "custom file" come into play here.  Could you
> perhaps give more details about the workflow which brings you to those
> issues, including the commands you use?

In my init file, I store a file name in `custom-file' so that the
stuff that customize manages is kept separate from my stuff, i.e., the
things I've write myself in my init file.

In the custom file, I have exclusively face customizations, which I
can tweak and save whenever I want.

So, if I write a call to customize-set-faces or
customize-set-variables right in my init file, the customizations made
that way end up in a "unsaved" state, so that if I do some face
customization (using customize) and save it, the custom file receives
not only the face customization, but also the other "unsaved" ones,
which I wanted to keep out of the custom file.

>> A workaround is to fool the customize facility by marking the relevant
>> customizations as "saved" just after the call to custom-set-variables,
>> but that is an ugly hack, IMO.
>
> Why would you need to save any customizations at all?  If you want to
> customize yet another variable, add yet another custom-set-variables
> form to your .emacs, that's all.  What am I missing?

Yes, I think that's a good approach.  I'll get rid of my custom file,
and do the appropriate calls to custom-set-xxxx directly from my init
file.

Thank you.  This bug can be closed.

-- 
Dani Moncayo